Lithuanian Annual Strategic Review

Securitisation is an intersubjective process of construing new categories or subcategories of security by identifying existential threats, the alleviation of which requires extraordinary measures and social acceptance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, both during the near-total lockdown, as well as in the period where restrictions were loosened, the messages presented in public space, calling for specific behaviours, displayed certain signs of this process – the limitation of citizens’ rights without the introduction of a state of emergency, as provided for by law, was carried out on the grounds of an extraordinary threat (threat of infection, illness or even death) the eradication of which requires extraordinary measures (depriving citizens of the possibility of moving, working, learning, taking advantage of entertainment or pursuing their passions, as well as imposing an order to wear masks and maintaining social distance) to be applied, which ˜– on the one hand – were introduced under the pain of punishment, while on the other, they were supposed to be met with general acceptance as rational and just. The following paper presents the results of a study of communications appearing in the public space in the period from March to August 2020 in Poland, which were to support the process of securitisation of the pandemic threat.